By Robert B. Todd
Themistius ran his philosophical institution in Constantinople in the course of the fourth century A.D. His paraphrases of Aristotle's writings are in contrast to the flowery commentaries produced through Alexander of Aphrodisias, or the later Neoplatonists Simplicius and Philoponus. His target was once to supply a transparent and autonomous restatement of Aristotle's textual content which might be obtainable as an ordinary exegesis. yet he additionally discusses very important philosophical difficulties, stories and disagrees with different commentaries together with the misplaced observation of Porphyry, and provides interpretations of Plato.
Themistius' paraphrase of Aristotle's at the Soul is his most vital and influential paintings. it's also the 1st extant observation in this paintings of Aristotle to outlive from antiquity. A rival to that of Alexander of Aphrodisias, it represents one of many major interpretations of Aristotle's concept of the mind, which used to be debated in the course of the center a long time and the Renaissance. It is still an enormous textual content for the reconstruction of Aristotle's philosophical psychology this present day
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Extra info for Themistius : on Aristotle On the soul
Example text
14,1 (405b8-10) So all the elements acquired a partisan, except for earth. Nobody laid claim to it, except where someone claimed that the soul was composed from, or identical with, all the elements. 14,4 (405b11-23) This body of information shows that [these thinkers] propose investigating [only] movement and knowledge in the soul, yet, as if unintentionally, slide towards a further third thing, incorporeality. For those who posit the soul as the most rarefied and thereby most easily moved [body] seem to dream up this reality, the incorporeal nature I mean.
G. being white, black, and two and three Book One 31 cubits long) being moved, but in respect of something else, because they exist in what is being moved. But it is impossible for things that are moved in this way either to be bodies, or in themselves to need the addition of a place. 15,26 (406a10-12) So since ‘being moved’ has two senses, we shall consider in the case of the soul, whether it is naturally moved in itself, and in this way shares in movement, given that since it is in a body that is moved, we too could concede that it is moved incidentally and in respect of something else.
For if it touches at a point, how will it apprehend objects that are divided into parts, given that it is impossible for what is not divided into parts to coincide with objects that are divided into parts? And if it touches in respect of magnitude, how again will it grasp objects that are not divided into parts? But the soul obviously does both when it thinks objects that are divided into parts, just as much as [when it thinks] objects that are not so divided. e. 43 22,7 (407a19-22) It is clear that those who posit the intellect as thinking in this way (I mean by being moved in a circle) concede that as a consequence this intellect is a circle and a magnitude.